Gundam Seed Paths to Redemption: Meiko Virea
by Awinterchill
Summary: Prequel/Spinoff to GSR a story about Meiko's Childhood in ROW. Stresses John Liene and Mike Shustre as the two father figures in her life and her development to becoming the girl that Yaro Yamato meets in GSR. A child born for war whose heart was too pure to commit the acts of evil the trained her for. For who Meiko was was written in the core of her existence, her light lived on.


**I am in the midst of starting Gundam Seed Immortal, which is a beast of a story right now to handle. I'm trying to sort it out but there seems to be so much to get straight before I can just go into writing. So to keep myself in a writing mood I've dabbled in this a bit. Being as I spend so much time with Meiko Virea I felt like it was only fair for me to establish some of who she was as a child, I don't know where I'll take this and if I'll take it much further than a chapter but I'm sure you all deserve something more.**

**SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED GSR: (I want to go into some important relationships, Meiko and John Liene's relationship is important because it wasn't always filled with hate. The twist at the end of GSR is he is fighting for the world all along, just in the middle of everything he went mad and his plan to use a war to bring out Cerrian ended up turning into his own mad hate of how the world stole his life from him. So I wanted to look at his relationship with Meiko as a child, the tender moments where he treats her like his own daughter as she was growing up started to melt with his madness. The way I've always seen the progression is that she relied on him then she watched as he slowly descended into madness and she began to fear him, then by the time we meet her in GSR she is more afraid of him than anything. The next relationship I want to look into is the one with Mike Shustre, the one who really was a father to her and always protected her. Then there is Gilligan Manchester who was her captain and whom she worked with extensively before becoming disillusioned by ROW. Then there is Mike and Liene at the beginning who both care about Meiko as a daughter but both take very different paths. So it's important stuff but also not necessary to read the main stories. More for me to have an outlet when I am loosing inspiration. END SPOILERS!  
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**It might just be me dabbling in scenes but here you go.**

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><p><strong>Gundam Seed Paths to Redemption: Meiko Virea<strong>

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><p><strong>Phase 1: Safe<br>**

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><p>"I will protect you Meiko," Liene's voice said to the three year old child who was handed the gun, "I will always protect you but as you grow we will teach you how to protect yourself." Her innocent violet eyes looked up at him and she looked so trusting. What he saw in her was his hope and the hope of the entire world. She was their last hope and he had to train her. He knew it seemed barbaric to some of those in his organization, using a child but he needed her to change the world.<p>

She nodded to him, she trusted him of course. He picked her up and carried her toward the gun range, he felt like she was his own child. She was the only child he had left and he would take care of her.

He would have raised her as his own, but little did he know where his dark desires would lead. Little did he know how his desperation would increase and he would bring her to fear him. Little did she know that the man she now relied on to keep her safe would turn her into a weapon, then would do everything to try and end her life.

In this day, she was innocent and he just wanted her to be safe. To him she was hope.

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><p>Her eyes a blazing violet as she peered out from under the table at the world outside, there were giant machines and people who scared her as she rocked herself back and forth to the sounds of the yelling out there. The table cloth provided some shade so that no one could really see her, but they were searching for her; she heard them yelling her name.<p>

"Liene she's just a child," she heard the voice of Mike Shustre, "she's barely five years old, you have to give her time, we can't put her near the field! It's barbaric." She let a tear slip from her eyes as she didn't understand. They had put metal machines in her hands for years and told her to fire them, that day she had pulled the small trigger as they told her to only this time it was pointed at a man and he had fallen and not gotten up afterwards. It frightened her and she had hid from them.

"She's going out there," Liene yelled, "She is the one thing these people won't fire at, but she won't be as merciful because she doesn't even understand." He was desperate, this battle was turning and he could feel his enemy on the other side willing him to loose. He wanted to keep her safe but she was the only one who was strong enough now.

"That's just it Liene!" Mike declared, "She doesn't understand." It was then that Mike and John Liene both saw the table cloth move a little and they heard a sob. Liene motioned to Mike to be silent and he bent down and lifted the table cloth to see little Meiko there with her short red hair, holding her knees and looking frightened. His expression softened as he knew he had to deal with the fact that she wasn't as strong as he had hoped when it came to her emotions, for he was bringing her up to be compassionate amidst her strenght. Meiko was wounded easily and very soft, and here he saw how small she looked; it was amazing how much potential power there was in such a small girl.

"Come on Meiko," Liene said with a soft tone of warmth and Meiko leaned back still, "No one is going to hurt you I promise," Liene continued, "We'll protect you Meiko, from everything. Come on, you'll be safe with me." With those words the frightened little girl moved up to him quickly throwing her arms around him in fear and crying. Mike turned away at the sight, Meiko trusted him completely and he was out to use her life for his own gain. Liene picked up the child and walked on toward the doors of the hangar. A few officers followed him.

"You, can't do this Liene!" Mike yelled, "She's just a child!"

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><p>I lived in a glass house it seemed, very fragile and very orderly. I never understood why I was not allowed to play with the other children that I sometimes saw in the hallways nor why it seemed as though people were afraid of me whenever I was out. For these were things I was not meant to understand as the world I lived in was more of a fairytale of lies than the paradise they seemed to think they had created for me but it was never paradise, it was living hell.<p>

The first home I remember wasn't much of a home at all. It was one room completely made of glass that saw not into anything beautiful but only a dark room beyond. The room was simple, having only the necessities of life and of course many different kinds of guns placed all over so that I would never be afraid of them. Of course none of them were loaded, but as a child they were my only toys. I knew the way out of my room of course, it was through a door in the floor that led into a hallway lined with guards who protected my little paradise. I had two friends for the first five years of my life while living in that room, they were John Liene and Mike Shustre. Mike was my caretaker and practically my father in that time as he was in charge of my instruction and learning and John Liene was a presence who would appear from time to time . I remember being frightened of him at times and then completely comfortable with him at others, he was another figure in my life and I felt like he had my best interests in mind. He appeared to care for me as his own child but at the same time he seemed distant always dwelling on something else. He was very strange to me and I didn't understand his interest in me but he often promised me that he was going to keep me safe so I trusted him.

For what I can remember of those years my schedule was to be up and 8:00 AM where Mike would come in and tutor me in reading, writing, mathematics, and modern languages. He always seemed to bring ethics and history into the equation as well, making sure that in my strict learning I was cultured and ready to face what the outside world was really like but to me in this time, that outside world seemed unreal.

At 1:00 PM I would be taken out of the room for three hours of gun training, strict and quick; something I didn't really understand. The metal machines were hard for my small hands to hold and my small body was not always strong enough to take the recoil they sent out. The men around me always seemed impatient and angry with me but Mike was always near to protect me from them so I was never really frightened of them. Then next hour I would spend with the officers at a dinner, I was clearly looked down upon which was not what I think Liene intended for this to be, he would always make jokes and try to make me laugh. He would treat me well in those times. My title was Ensign Meiko Virea even as a small child, I did not really understand it but they seemed to say it with some sort of respect.

At 4:00 PM came my favorite part of the day, Mobile suit training. For the first seven years it was conducted through simulations and suits designed for training but it was something I regarded as a game and quickly picked up on. It seemed this was the only place where my commanders were impressed and I always hated when it ended at 8:00 and the worst part of the day came.

When I turned 4 they began to put me into intensive training regimes, where I would go through intense obstacle courses to the best of my ability for 1/2 an hour a night before I could sleep. When I turned eight they upped it to an hour then when I was ten two hours and when I turned 13 it was 4. I did not see until that time that I was not human to them, but rather a weapon that they were fine tuning for the battlefields that I seemed to always find myself on. The first time I killed was when I was five years old, the officers put a man on my shooting range and told me to fire over and over until the man had fallen down with blood streaming from his body. I couldn't get the image out of my head for many months, it haunted my dreams and tortured me.

That sight awoke something inside of me that Liene grew to dislike, for it was then that I started to see a disconnect between what Mike was teaching me and what I was being forced to do. Nevertheless I was placed on a battlefield that day and I did kill, I turned the tide from what they said, for who is going to shoot on a little girl who looked as frightened as I did? I on the other hand did not hesitate to fire for fear of what the repercussions would be from those who swore the would protect me. I believed Liene and Mike but the others frightened me.

When I was 7 the structure of my days often became interrupted by interactions with other soldiers and battlefield experiences that I did not want to be a part of and that I did not fully understand. I grew to hate the weapons on my walls and I began to devise ways to get out of my home which I began to see as a prison. Something in my seven year old mind was different than my robotic self that had allowed me to be blindly pushed into everything, I found that I was strong as they wanted me to be and that I could use my strengths for myself as well.

My first time sneaking out, I got past the guards easily through the vents that I was just big enough to crawl through, I would mostly do this at night when I was supposed to be asleep; Mike was merciful enough that he would let me rest through a lot of our study time. I first would go into the training area to see the mobile suits, then I would sneak around to listen to the officers conversations. I noticed then that a lot of them seemed more concerned with an organization called Redemption than anything else, for it seemed that name was whispered in fear. I also noticed that when I did hear my name it was spoke in contempt and disbelief; they saw me as a pest and a nuisance who hated firing the guns I was given and who obviously did not belong on the battlefield. After the first time I stayed in for a very long time, scared of what I would hear from the other officers; but what little child can resist the temptation to go out and see what is happening beyond their glass room?

My second trip out was the one that did change my life, I was in the mobile suit area where I first saw the frame structure of the Pain, the mobile suit that would be mine when I thought I heard someone calling my name. I knew I was out of place in that moment I was frightened that I had been discovered, so as I was just a small child I took off to my vents and in my hurried I turned in the wrong direction and ended up in a room that was not my own. I was scared at first, as the room had no windows, only florescent lights and on one side of it was a boy whom was sitting in a corner reading a book that I had never seen before. He had looked up from his book and he seemed shocked to see me, more shocked than I was.

"Hi," he spoke first as I was more shy and not used to much human interaction beyond training, in fact my first instinct was to turn and scurry out the way I came in but something about his eyes had me stuck there. They were a deep grey and also very interesting, there was an air of mystery and wonder in them.

"Hi," I responded, still unsure of myself or even what to say. He was different than the officers, first off he was younger and he seemed so much nicer than them. There was a genuine air about him that I still remember now, because he was different. This meeting, I didn't realize would both make and break me. For so many things changed that day within me and they changed further through the short time I knew him. Mike could only teach me so much about ethics, this boy helped me to see good and evil in a much different way.

"You seem lost," the boy responded, "I don't think this is where you were trying to end up." He laughed and smiled so much it made me feel comfortable for once in my life. "My names Daniel, I'm a special agent. What's your name?"

"I'm Meiko Virea," I replied quickly using my full name as everyone did when talking about me, "I am lost, I thought they were coming after me so I ran the wrong way, things look similar all over."

"Well Meiko you're the first friend I've made here," Daniel responded tilting his head in a funny way, I thought that the word he said was odd. Friend, I had never really had someone to call friend before, Liene and Mike were the closest as they took care of me but I had never thought of either of them as friends. Daniel held out his hand to me then and I took it reluctantly, I did not exactly know how to react to this new declaration of friendship so I voiced what I was thinking as I had my entire life.

"I've never had a friend before," I spoke to him in awe, "I don't know if I'll be a very good one." He laughed at that, I liked it when he laughed. It was that day when things changed for me.

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><p><strong>So there it is, feel free to leave a review. I don't know if I will update this much but I will enjoy it when I do. <strong>

**-WinterChill**


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